Joe Steele. Congressman from California. Not San Francisco. Not Nob Hill. Good Lord, no. Fresno. Farm country. That great valley, squeezed by mountains east and west. Not a big fellow, Joe Steele. Stands real straight, so you don’t notice too much. Mustache, a good-sized one. Thick head of hair just starting to go gray. Eyelids like shutters. When they go down and then come up again, you can’t see what was behind them.

Rated R. Contains profanity and strong political themes. Not happy politics, like we have today. 1930s politics.

This one had a pretty high win quotient. Not 100% win, but definitely far more win than fail. My biggest complaint would be that I think fascist Communism would end up looking different in America and this story's version ended up a little too close to Russia's version.

I'm rarely a fan of political stories, simply because I just get sick of being inundated with political conversations at work and during election years. In this case, I didn't make it far enough into the story to be bothered by the political message because I could stand the writing style.

D for Delano. Short declarative sentence fragments. D for Delano. Head hurting. D for Delano.

Sentence fragments can be used well in prose to give a more conversational tone, but there were too many for my brain to handle here. I'll root for any story structure that enhances it's material, but I couldn't pay attention to anything BUT the structure. I started giving a little cheer whenever I heard a complete sentence.

And the phrase "D for Delano" got more and more annoying each time I heard it. Was that an attempt at humor? If so, it totally missed me. Usually I give each story a little longer before I decide to turn it off, but after a dozen repititions or so of "D for Delano" I stopped.

D for Delano. Short declarative sentence fragments. D for Delano. Head hurting. D for Delano.

I believe the Delano's were a name associated with vast wealth and privilege. Maybe a similar name for our time might be 'T for Trump' or 'H for Hilton'... or maybe 'M for Medici' if you were in Europe.

D for Delano. Short declarative sentence fragments. D for Delano. Head hurting. D for Delano.

I believe the Delano's were a name associated with vast wealth and privilege. Maybe a similar name for our time might be 'T for Trump' or 'H for Hilton'... or maybe 'M for Medici' if you were in Europe.

Perhaps, but the repitition was still too much. The name "Roosevelt" was also a name associated with vast wealth and privilege, and being a surname, meant much more than a middle name in any case.

D for Delano. Short declarative sentence fragments. D for Delano. Head hurting. D for Delano.

I believe the Delano's were a name associated with vast wealth and privilege. Maybe a similar name for our time might be 'T for Trump' or 'H for Hilton'... or maybe 'M for Medici' if you were in Europe.

Perhaps, but the repitition was still too much. The name "Roosevelt" was also a name associated with vast wealth and privilege, and being a surname, meant much more than a middle name in any case.

I think the point is that he came from not 1 but 2 families of wealth of privilege. This is contrasted with Joe Steele's working class background as an Georgian raisin grower's kid.

I liked the effect; it was more like a prose poem than anything else. Not something I'd want to be the new standard of storytelling, but I liked the rhythm and repetition, like refrains in a song. It helped to emphasize certain details (both those that were and those that pointedly were not repeated.)

Wow. A powerful, and uncomfortably plausible story.I'd be the last person to say all our presidents in the USA were wonderful, but so far we've been spared bloody monsters like Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. While it's easy to get complacent and think of those sort as being only possible elsewhere, there's really no rule that prevents it.

...

I'm not sure i would have liked it as much reading it myself. The "rhythm and repetition" appeal more easily to the ear than when reading, at least to me.

Wow, this was horrible and painful to listen to. I couldn't tell when the song quote ended and the story began, but after a minute I realized that we were probably into the story. But stories need at least some complex sentences and to be organized into paragraphs. Plot-wise I was intrigued, but the only well-written part was the quote from Joe Steele's speech which used actual sentences. I know this was some kind of experiment, but as far as I am concerned it was a huge fail.

Wow, this was horrible and painful to listen to. I couldn't tell when the song quote ended and the story began, but after a minute I realized that we were probably into the story. But stories need at least some complex sentences and to be organized into paragraphs. Plot-wise I was intrigued, but the only well-written part was the quote from Joe Steele's speech which used actual sentences. I know this was some kind of experiment, but as far as I am concerned it was a huge fail.

You might want to avoid "Usurpers" as well. All short declarative sentences, with the protagonist referring to himself in 3rd person.